The Khachapuri Challenge
For this week’s lockdown baking challenge, we are asking you to make one of our favourite flatbreads – Khachapuri. We’ve had some fabulous challenge results emailed in from all over the world so many thanks for sending those in; we’ve loved seeing what you’ve made. Let’s see how you get on this week!
These are fun to make and very filling, great for a big breakfast or brunch. We mix three cheeses, mozzarella for stringiness, mature Cheddar for sharpness and feta for saltiness. Nothing like the original Georgian mixture but let’s not allow a lack of authenticity to get in the way of a good snack.
We’ve cooked ours in the wood fired oven but if you haven’t got one, it’s not a problem – just turn your regular oven up to 240C or as high as it will go if it doesn’t get that hot. You can also make the dough the night before and put it covered in the fridge; bring it back to room temperature and then carry on the recipe as below.
Any questions, just let us know.
Delicious khachapuri – fantastic for brunch
Ingredients
This recipe will make 4 Khachapuri –
- 500g strong white flour
- 10g fine seasalt
- 5g fast acting yeast
- 330g room temperature water 9easier to weight water than measure it – 1ml=1g)
- 120g mozzarella, ripped into little pieces
- 120g grated mature Cheddar
- 120g crumbled feta
- 4 medium eggs
- Olive oil
- 1tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1tsp dried thyme
Oven State and Equipment
Wood Fired Oven temperature 3 Mississippi (Between 250C and 275C)
Door on your Wood Fired Oven Ajar
If you’re going to do a lot of breadmaking, you will find a couple of dough scrapers very useful – for mixing, cutting, lifting dough and scraping random bits off your work surface.
Method
- Mix the flour, salt and yeast together in a large bowl. Add the water and mix well. Knead the dough on a clean work surface until smooth and springy. Try not to add more flour as it will dry out eventually.
- Put the dough back in a clean bowl, cover and leave to rise for 2 hours.
- Mix the three cheeses with the thyme and oil and leave in the fridge.
- Divide the dough into 4 even pieces. Shape into balls, cover with oiled clingfilm and leave to rest for 30 minutes. This will make shaping the breads much easier.
- Take a ball of dough and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Sprinkle a little flour on top.
- Use your fingertips to press the dough out to make a rounded rectangle about 22x10cm.
- Take two corners at one of the ends and cross one over the other. Press down to create the bow of your boat-shaped khachapuri. Repeat at the other end to make the stern.
- Roll the edges in and press down to make the sides of your boat. You should now have a nice, deep pocket to fill with cheese.
- Repeat the shaping process with the other 3 dough balls.
- Divide the cheese mixture between the 4 khachapuri.
- Put 2 of the khachapuri on to a well floured peel and shuffle them into your oven. Repeat with the other 2.
- Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven. Make a well in the cheese of each khachapuri and crack an egg into the centre of each one. Return to the oven and bake for a further 5 minutes.
- Serve warm with the egg still runny.
Alternatives
- Use different kinds of cheeses; whatever you have in the fridge to use up is fine.
- Add a few chopped cooked onions or some onion marmalade to the khachapuri before adding the cheeses.
- Or some chopped roast peppers if you’ve done some yourself or got a jar of them in the fridge
- Or some halved cherry tomatoes
- Or add a bit of finely shredded ham
- If you don’t like eggs, just leave them out
That’s it – happy cooking and let us know how you get on
More flatbreads in our cookbook here
Back next week with another challenge
David and Hollyx
